INCIDENTS OF EARLY TRAVELS IN MISSOURI 19 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 



INCIDENTS OF EARLY TRAVELS IN MISSOURI. 



JOHN P. JONES, KEYTESVILLE, MO. 



The first traveler in the Mississippi Valley, who in the account of his travels, 

 has left a claim of having ascended the Missouri river, is Baron La Hontan.* It 

 would be more satisfactory to investigators of our early history, if full faith could 

 be given to the Baron's recitals, but some of his statements in reference to his 

 travels north of us, are known to be false, and it is therefore difficult to determine 

 from the meager facts that he relates, whether or not he ever was on the Missouri, 

 He claims to have entered the river at its mouth, on the 17th day of March, 1689, 

 and to have reached the first village of the Missouri, on the i8th, and the second 

 village on the next day. Three leagues from this village, he says, they reached 

 the mouth of the Osage and encamped. After a skirmish with a body of Indians, 

 they re-embarked and started down stream ; landing his force during the night, 

 they destroyed an Indian village and, re-embarking, reached the mouth of the river 

 on the morning of the 25th. The next day he met some Arkansas Indians, and 

 says, "All that I learned from them was, that the Missouris and Osages were 

 numerous and mischievous, that their country ,was watered with very great rivers 

 and, in a word, was too good for them." It is possible that what the Baron learn- 

 ed from these Indians was all the information he obtained concerning the Mis- 

 souris and Osages and their countries. 



Father James Gravier,^ under date of Feb. 15th, 1694, writes of a visit made 

 by some Illinois Indians and two Frenchmen, to the Missouris and Osages, as 

 follows : "About the middle of May, the deputies of the Indians of this village, 

 accompanied by two Frenchmen, set out to seek the alliance of the Missouris and 

 Osages. These French traders, with a view of opening up a profitable trade with 

 these tribes, have made them some proposals for peace, to which they have con- 

 sented only out of considerations for the French, in consequence of which they 

 have become reconciled with the Osages." 



"I would cheerfully have made this voyage in order to see with my own eyes, 

 whether there was anything to be done for God's glory among the Tamaroa and 



* "New Voyages to North America, 1683 to 1694." Written in French by Baron La Hontan. Done into 

 English and published at London 1703. 



■fOne of tVs many zealous priests of the Society of Jesus, who lost their lives in the valley of the Mississippi. 

 He first visited the Illinois in 1687, but returned |to the Ottawa Mission the following year. In 1693 he was 

 again among the Illinois and spent the most of his time with them until the year 1705. During that year he, 

 was dangerously wounded in a mob raised by the medicine men of the Peorias, and descending the Mississ- 

 ippi to Mobile, died early in the following year from the eflfects of his wound. 



